I was fooling around on the internet a while ago…I was actually trying to kill time, avoiding doing any work on my websites…and I ran across a story about Billy Grahm (actually it was a joke involving him…a CLEAN, funny joke)…and at the same time I was listening to Pandora. I have a channel on Pandora named “Southern Gospel Radio and I was listening to it in the background and someone came on singing “How Great Thou Art”.

Well…I WAS reading the Billy Grahm joke with that song in the background (one of my favorite songs BTW. My mom had three songs she was always singing while she did the stay at home mom thing, and “How Great Thou Art” was one of them) and one thing led to another and I found myself doing a Google search for “billy grahm how great thou art singer” and up popped the video below of George Beverly Shea in the number two place:

About 60 seconds into the video I realized I was crying! I was singing…or TRYING to sing…along with the video and found my voice cracking and realized I had tears on my cheeks!

Now understand, I’m not one to pretend “big boys don’t cry”. I’ll be the first to admit that when it hurts bad enough, inside or out, we cry. We try to hide it for the most part, but we do cry. But come on…watching George Beverly Shea sing “How Great Thou Art is a calamity…a calamity great enough to turn on the spigots?

And then I realized I was doing something I had seen before and never quite understood…as a matter of fact I had chuckled under my breath at it. I had been in church when sometimes people, men and women, would have this blessed look on their faces…AND BEEN CRYING AT THE SAME TIME! The few times I had asked what people were crying about I had been told it was because they were overcome with emotion at how blessed they felt, cradeled in God’s Grace.

Uh-huh…yeah, right.

But now I understood, because that is exactly where I was, and hearing Shea sing that great hymn brought it home.

In the last several years…since 2004 actually, since 5 years before JuicyMaters existed…my life has gone through some tremendous changes, physically and mentally, mostly good. I won’t catalog them here (I don’t want to bore you) but there has been a good deal of upheaval in the Hayles household, and the latest big change was on December 31 when my bride Cindy and I said our marriage vows. I told Cindy last night that the last month has been the first month of the best years of my…our…life.

That’s what did it…thinking about the last month and how it fits perfectly with all of the good changes in the last decade or so. It just made me feel very, very blessed, and overwhelmed…kinda like those “criers” in church. NOW I understand.

There is a weekend…and a rest of my life…coming up. I know it will be awewsome…and blessed. Yours will too, I’ll bet. Tell us about your blessings in the comments below, ok? And remember…

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

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Bob is a N Georgia blogger, homesteader, yurt liver, self-sufficiency nutjob, pig farmer, political activist, politician baiter...and the best damn cook you know that doesn't make a living at it.He can be followed onTwitter. You can also "Like" our Facebook page.